


Where the Waves Meet

by LenneWithMilkAndHoney, PottersPink



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Magic, Magical Realism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Selkies, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29663190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LenneWithMilkAndHoney/pseuds/LenneWithMilkAndHoney, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PottersPink/pseuds/PottersPink
Summary: Magic.That was what gave the serum its kick, what gave Steve health and strength and speed. It gave Steve something else, too, but — Well. All magic comes with a price, doesn’t it?Nearly seventy years later, Bucky Barnes has clawed his way out of the hole Hydra put him in. In 2013, he gets the call that he’s been dreading and longing for most:It’s the Valkyrie. We’ve found him.If only it was ever that easy.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 23
Kudos: 45





	1. Dying is a Lonely Business

**Author's Note:**

> I was so happy when Lenne said she was game for another collab, and here it finally is! I am so pleased with how this has all come together. New chapters will be posted on Saturdays.
> 
> Big thank you to TooManyBattles for the cheerleading & brainstorming help! And as always: so much love to peach, who is a wonderful friend and who also whips my writing into shape. 
> 
> Title is from _Mantlepiece,_ by Lemoncello.

_**Arctic Circle, 1945.** _

Everything in his sight is a rush of white. Over the radio, Peggy’s voice is reduced to static.

The force of the descent is holding Steve in place in the pilot’s seat — even moving his arms up to protect himself takes immense effort, but _— does it matter? Does it fucking matter? —_ he’s about to die, there’s nothing he can do about it. He would close his eyes, but he can’t bring himself to look away — his own demise, rising to meet him.

He can’t even tell how close to the earth he is, not when everything is one block of white, broken up only by cracks of black ocean.

Steve realizes very suddenly that he’s scared.

His chest is heaving and his heart is pounding and he is so _fucking scared, oh God, Buck, honey, did you feel like this too?_

_Were you falling forever, too?_

Forever, and then the ice: the force of the impact is like nothing he’s ever felt, or will ever feel again. The world goes black.

❖

And then, slow and sharp like the repetitive strike of a match, he begins to _burn_.

❖

He wakes up knowing that he’s tearing apart. If it weren’t for the sound of crunching metal and shattering ice, he would hear himself cracking and splintering _— skin pulling, lungs burning, bones bending —_

_Shouldn’t I be dead? Why aren’t I dead —_

The fear comes back with a vengeance, made worse by the pain and confusion. _Mam. Mam — I don’t want this — I’m so cold —_

This could be Hell. Not what’s preached in church, but still awful: so cold it burns. Endlessly black. Being flayed to pieces.

The pain crests, and he sinks once more.

❖

When he is aware of himself again, Steve opens his eyes and sees his shield. It’s leaning against the pilot’s seat, and it has no colour. Pieces of his uniform float around him, and his cowl is on the floor.

He is still inside the cockpit of the Valkyrie.

Everything is dark, but it feels — duller. He spins, reeling at the wrongness of it all. He’s alive, but there’s something about his body… He looks down and sees —

The night before Steve stepped into the Vita-Ray machine, Dr. Erskine had sat him down and poured him a drink. He told Steve that once upon a time, magic was real, and that once upon a time, it had been strong in his family. As the years passed, it got weaker and weaker, until it was just something that was in his blood, nothing more and nothing less.

Unable to use it himself, he found a way to take it from his body and give it new purpose; meagre as it was, he still knew that it could only help his serum.

Dr. Erskine was definitely drunk, but Steve still believed every word. It had been foolish, really, not to ask for more information. _Shapeshifter magic, Steven,_ Dr. Erskine had said, reaching up to gently pat Steve on the cheek. _That is the key._

Once upon a time, in a land far from his own home, Dr. Erskine had had a grandmother that came from the sea.

 _A leanbh,_ Steve can hear his mam say, fond and exasperated both. _Did you not listen to my stories? You know what that means._

The implications are too much for him to handle right now. Only moments before _— had it even been just moments? How long did this transformation take? —_ Steve had been about to die, he had been ready to die, and now —

He feels the water move around him, feels it being pulled out of a hole in the metal below him — it’s the hole the cube burned through the floor, giant with blackened edges now — and he swims down to it and exits the plane, slipping into open water. He inspects the wreckage, stuck in chunks of ice, pieces broken off and probably already at home at the bottom of the ocean. His lungs begin to burn.

Overwhelmed, he turns away from the Valkyrie. He doesn’t spare a thought for the shield or his weapons or his uniform.

He lets instinct take over, and heads into the open waters.

❖

_**Brooklyn, 2013.** _

Bucky has only just sat down to eat dinner when he gets the call.

Once Agent Coulson says his piece, the line goes quiet. Bucky closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing. Coulson waits him out.

“You thought you found it before,” is all Bucky can choke out.

Agent Coulson sighs. _“I know. I wouldn’t have called you if I wasn’t sure. We got the call a week ago, but just for a wreckage. Wasn’t sure what it was until this morning when we finally cleared away enough of the snow and ice. There’s a Hydra insignia on the side of the hull.”_

Bucky is distantly aware that his heart is pounding and that his left hand is doing its job crushing whatever is currently in its grasp _— the table, fuck —_ “When are you going in?”

_“We can wait until you get here.”_

“I’ll be there in eight hours,” he replies, and hangs up.

❖

Within an hour, there is a knock on his door, and Bucky opens it to find Natalia decked up in full arctic gear; joke is on her, though, because Bucky was prepared for her awful sense of humour and is also in full arctic gear.

“Boo,” she says, and while he can’t see her face underneath the goggles and mask, he knows that she’s wearing a ridiculous pout. “Where did you hide a parka in this dump?”

“Always have to be prepared,” Bucky replies, refusing to rise to the bait.

She hums, pulling the goggles up and the mask down, and gives him an assessing look. “How’re you feeling, soldier?”

“‘M fine,” he tells her, but she reaches out and catches his hand before he manages to touch his hair _— fuck his nervous ticks._

“That’s nice. Very vague. Your hair looks like a rat’s nest.” They hold each other’s gaze for a moment, Natalia looking unfazed and Bucky feeling wound up. It’s a staring contest he always loses, because unlike everyone else, who can’t see past the Winter Soldier, Natalia has stood where he is standing and has already crawled her way out of hell. He’s probably almost too easy to read; her older, wearier, more cautious reflection.

He sighs, and he feels himself fold inwards, shoulders drooping and hair falling in front of his face. “I don’t know if I want it to be him.”

“You know this time it probably is,” she replies, not unkindly.

Bucky dips his head and keeps his eyes on the floor. Shame and grief and longing make up an ugly mess in his head, in his chest, make his hands shake. “I’m not — I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to live without him.”

“I don’t think what we’re ready for ever mattered, James,” she says, expression solemn. “But the least we can do for him is bring him home, don’t you think?”

❖

**_Outside of Odessa, 2007._ **

The air is humid; sweat gathers uncomfortably under the Asset’s mask, but he does not move from his perch.

The Asset has been awake for three weeks. He is warm. He is malfunctioning. He is waiting.

The comms are silent; the Asset knows where all of the other agents are located, waiting for him to finish the job and to come in for extraction. He does not think they know he is malfunctioning. That he has been for a week.

It takes fifty-two minutes for the car to show up.

Once it’s in range, the Asset fires his gun; he hits the windshield and the back left tire. The driver loses control of the car, and they flip — while they can’t see him, the Asset moves to stand and approaches the scene of the crash. He drops his rifle in favour of a smaller, sleeker gun.

He nearly drops it when he sees them.

A spider drags his mark across the street; she has red hair and she is bigger than he remembers.

She is so big. When did she get so big?

“Steve?” He says, not recognizing his own voice. And then the Asset’s mind splinters.

❖

The next thing he knows, he is driving a stolen car down a dark road and the arm is gone; it’s a mess of broken wires and it s _mells._ There is dark fluid leaking from the wound, but the Asset doesn’t think that it’s blood. On the back of his neck, under the sixth rib on his right side, and behind his left knee, he can feel skin knitting back together.

The trackers are taken care of. His handlers will not find him any time soon.

The spider stares at him from the passenger seat. The scientist is sitting in the back, also staring at him through the rearview mirror. She is holding a bundle of cloth to her side, but the bleeding isn’t severe.

“You blew your own arm off,” the spider tells him.

“I thought you were smaller,” he replies.

She turns away from him, eyes focused on the road. “I thought you were a ghost.”

❖

_**Arctic Circle, off the coast of Greenland, 2013.** _

Bucky and Natalia land at the site in just under seven hours since Coulson’s call. There is a team of around thirty people working, milling in and out of tents and tinkering with giant machines Bucky assumes are meant to pull —

“Christ,” he says, staring at the cockpit sticking out of the ice. It’s no wonder the only thing Steve could have done was put the plane in the ocean. “This thing is huge.”

Natalia bumps him with her shoulder. “Get with the times, Barnes,” her tone is teasing, but he also notices that she hasn’t taken her eyes off of the plane. “This thing is tiny.”

Seventy years of innovation later, Bucky doesn’t doubt it. He knows it. But — just thinking about Steve sitting in the pilot’s seat, nose-diving right into his grave, all alone _— I wish I could have — how fucking lonely. He was all alone —_

“Come on,” Natalia says, pulling him out of his head. “They’re ready to head inside. They were only waiting for us.”

❖

Bucky isn’t asked whether or not he wants to be on the team that goes in — he’s both grateful and irritated for it, but at least he and Natalia both get set up on the comms and can stand with the team closest to the plane. Bucky has to focus all of his energy to keep himself from fidgeting as the agents are lowered into the cockpit.

_[[Everything is coated in ice — seems like at one point it was full of water, but flooded out as the cockpit rose.]]_

_[[Some snow, all fresh.]]_

_[[Some damage to the walls of the plane. Count three visible holes through to open air, can’t tell how old they are. Biggest one is in the floor.]]_

The comms go quiet for a few minutes, and Bucky shifts anxiously on his feet. Natalia reaches out to grab his hand, a rare display of affection. Bucky squeezes her hand. _Fuck, why are they so quiet —_

_[[Majority of pilot’s seat is encased in ice. Will most likely need laser to cut it out.]]_

Most of the pilot seat — enough to hold — did Steve just freeze, right there? Or what if he didn’t freeze until a while later, long enough that it’ll just be — that his body started to — will it just be —

—bones, or —

“Shh,” Natalia says, adjusting her grip on his hand and giving his arm a sharp tug. “You’re thinking too loud. I think they found something.”

Sure enough, the comms crackle back to life. _[[We’ve found the shield. It will need to be cut out of the ice.]]_

Bucky’s breath leaves him in a rush. He feels like he’s been punched. He bows his head and closes his eyes, on the edge of distraught. _We’re so close, you’re so close. We’re almost there, sweetheart._

The whole team is quiet, dragged away from their tasks to listen to the agents working their way through the cockpit. Waiting for the words _we found him, he’s here._

_Steve is here._

_Oh, god._

Bucky can’t breathe. It’s like everything that’s built up to this moment has just come crashing down on him, all at once. It feels like a punch to the gut to know, all of a sudden, that Steve is never coming home alive. In all the years since Bucky escaped Hydra, it’s never felt so real, so heavy — Steve’s not — he’s not — out there, fighting like he was born to do it, punching people in the face because he can and he _will, Buck, jeez, lemme at ‘em —_ he won’t show up at Bucky’s apartment one day with a split lip and a that look on his face and say _‘what, Barnes, not gonna kiss it better?’_

He rips the comm out of his ear and tosses it to the ground — not that far, since he’s already on his knees _— Christ I’m a mess —_ and Natalia is there, eyes wide with concern and she grabs his arm, asks, “James, what are you —”

And then she stops. Turns to look at the plane, stricken.

Bucky forces himself to take a breath.

“What?” Natalia asks, and squeezes Bucky’s wrist. “Repeat that, Agent Nelson.”

Bucky scrambles for his discarded comm, shoves it back in place and flinches at the shock of cold —

_[[—pieces of his uniform, Agent Romanov. Nothing else.]]_

Bits of cloth and the shield.

That’s it?

Even with the holes in the side of the plane, the water pressure should have kept everything inside — _everything,_ including —

Bucky’s vision starts to tunnel. He has pins and needles in his hands and feet.

Bucky gets up and turns to leave. No one stops him.

❖

Steve only stumbles across the excavation team by chance. He doesn’t come by the Valkyrie too often anymore, not since he’d given up on the chance of it ever being found.

Especially since they wouldn’t be finding him with it.

It’s difficult to explain the feeling he gets when he spots the team of people. Feelings are — hard. Muted. Not part of this life he has, alone in the arctic. The anger is easy enough to recognize, because that’s been a constant since his first breath — fear is a harder pill to swallow; it’s irrational and stupid and why should Steve be _scared,_ he has absolutely nothing to lose here, it’s just a bunch of people who found a plane, no guarantee that they know _which_ plane —

Hope is the worst. Steve turns to swim away more than once, but he’s always turning back around, always getting closer and closer each time — maybe they’ll find his shield, if it’s still inside. Maybe they’ll exhume the chunk of metal and scraps of cloth that made up who he was _before_ and —

Well, then they’ll leave. They’ll bring those pieces of Captain America back to New York or maybe Washington and they’ll stick ‘em in a museum, maybe, or just throw them in the trash.

Steve comes back up for air, his back to the team. They’ll probably be heading into the plane, soon.

Maybe there’s — a clue, or something. Some kinda — magical residue, or — _something_ that would tell them that he’s still out here, just different. Changed, again.

Hope is the worst.

So now that he’s as close as he can get to the team without disturbing them, he sticks his head out of the water to watch the team use — lights? Some kind of heat gun? To cut away at the ice around the plane. He gets a small thrill when he hears them say his name — _the first time in — oh god, can’t even think about that —_ He listens to them cheer when they finally hit metal, and he is so still that he starts to sink as he waits for them to make their way inside.

They don’t go in.

 _Why won’t they go inside?_ He kicks his flippers, anxious. He heard them say _Valkyrie,_ and _Captain Rogers_ — they know what they’re looking at. What could they possibly be waiting for?

He heaves himself up onto an ice floe to wait; he hears a few people point him out to their colleagues, but since he doesn’t move, they leave him alone. Steve figures that whatever machine they bring to break into the plane would be loud enough to wake him, so he burrows into the snow and settles in for a doze.

A few hours later, he’s woken by another plane lowering onto the ice — something small and sleek, and when Steve sees the people come out of it he knows why they waited.

A man and a woman step onto the ice, but Steve only has eyes for the man: his hood is drawn up, but his face is bare. Steve feels like he’s dying all over again.

It’s _Bucky._

He rolls off of the floe and into the water, turning himself over in anxious circles. _How the fuck did this happen? How is Bucky alive?_

Steve thinks about the fall, wonders if it’s just grief and guilt and fear that made the drop seem so far — but no, even with less height, hitting the ice and rocks would be fatal, for anyone —

Anyone. Anyone without the serum.

Steve had suspected, after pulling Bucky off of Zola’s table, but Bucky never wanted to talk about it. Steve hadn’t wanted to push, but it was obvious to him that Bucky was faster, stronger. He slept less, and the guys just quietly assumed it was nightmares, but Steve had recognized a restlessness similar to his own.

_Fucking Zola._

He stops his circling, another thought occurring to him, sharp and sudden and filling him with dread. _Who found him? Who found Bucky in the ravine?_ _What happened_ after _he was found?_ He looks like he’s barely aged at all — but Steve doesn’t look 95, either —

He surfaces again, and tries to find a spot with a clear view of Bucky and the woman he came with. He can’t get closer without risking being chased away or shot at, so he has to settle for watching from a distance.

He wants to get closer like he hasn’t wanted anything in _years_ — he watches as Bucky and the woman he’s with receive small devices that they put in their ears — probably radios? — and they’re led over to a spot a few metres away from the plane.

With a sinking heart, Steve realizes what is about to happen.

❖

Steve doesn’t have to hear them tell Bucky he’s not in the plane. Steve knows it just from watching his expression.

The look on his face — did Steve look like that? When he was told he couldn’t go looking for Bucky? When he thought about Bucky alone and broken at the bottom of a ravine?

He slips under the ice and lashes out with his tail, can’t stop the wail from crawling out of his throat. He beats himself bloody against the ice, so angry that there is nothing he can do — in their eyes, he’s an animal. Right now, very obviously a predator. Not something they’ll recognize as magic or something once human.

He surfaces with a gasp, but no one is paying attention to him. He finds Bucky still kneeling where he first dropped, eyes staring blankly at the plane and hand at his ear — the woman he’s with is dropped low beside him, hand wrapped around his wrist.

Bucky stands and turns away without looking back.

❖

Later — Bucky knows it’s been hours, but the light is still the same, which is fucking annoying— he’s tucked close to the side of the Valkyrie, looking out onto the landscape. Just white and ice and nothing.

Bucky pulls a cigarette out of his pocket, grumbling as he tries to light it. “At least you’re good for blocking the wind, you piece of shit plane.”

He feels restless. Anxious. Angry and embarrassed, because _of fucking course_ he was going to panic like that during the excavation. He didn’t want to let go of Steve, but he was bracing for it this whole time. He had to. And coming all the way here to just find — pieces of _Captain America,_ the shield and the stripes and not — Bucky’s been pulled taut like a rubber band, stretched to the breaking point waiting for that one awful snap of relief, and then just — nothing. Loose ends.

He smokes his cigarette down to the filter, thinks about having another, when a small, dark shape catches his eye off in the distance — something bobbing in the water. It ducks back under, and surfaces closer this time; Bucky thinks it’s a seal, which, as far as he knows, is probably harmless if he leaves it alone.

The seal hops out of the water, and Bucky has to reassess the thing’s ability to cause harm. It’s — stupidly large. It’s staring right at him.

Two sets of footsteps come around the plane to join him, and he hears them both stop; he assumes they’ve both seen what he’s looking at.

“Is that… is that a leopard seal?” Coulson asks, holding his hand over his eyes to block the sun. “How did it end up this far north?”

Bucky doesn’t answer, because how the fuck is he supposed to know? It’s a wild animal, and a weird looking one at that — it’s still a safe distance away, sure, but it’s watching Bucky with a strange intensity that puts him on edge.

“Don’t they live in arctic waters?” Natalia asks, pulling her binoculars out of her pack.

 _“Ant_ arctic waters. And their only known predator is a killer whale.” Coulson steps back and pulls his mask back up to cover his face. “It’s best to just leave it alone. I’ve heard they’re not very friendly.”

Bucky puts his cigarette out on his left hand and stands, brushing the snow off his pants. They start to walk back to the jet. “Well?” Bucky hates how raspy his voice comes out. “Find anything else?”

“We’ve collected all we can of Captain Rogers’ uniform, and the shield is currently being defrosted. It might take fifteen minutes to loosen it completely from the ice.” He shifts a little on his feet, which is off-brand for Coulson. “I know… I know that this was important to you, sergeant Barnes, and that this wasn’t what you had hoped for, but I cleared it with the Director, and you can take the shield back home with you.”

It — Bucky hadn’t even thought that someone would have to give him permission to take Steve’s shield home, but since he gets to take it there’s no point in getting mad about it now. “Are you keeping the uniform?”

Bucky doesn’t actually want the bits of Steve’s uniform, but that SHIELD wants them at all is enough to make Bucky suspicious.

“Initial screening and tests on the pieces they’ve extracted have come back with an unknown… energy interwoven in the cloth. They need to go back to SHIELD for further analysis,” Natalia tells him.

“Testing for what?” He knows, really, why they would be interested in having something that could possibly help them recreate a working serum, but he would like it if they said it to his face. “Agent Coulson?”

By now, they’ve reached the quinjet. With nothing else to do, Bucky and Natalia will be heading back to New York, and another team is already on its way here to dig out the rest of the plane. Natalia gives him a warning look, but walks past them to get settled for the flight back.

Coulson sighs. “Look, Sergeant Barnes —”

“The last time someone thought they were close to recreating the serum, they turned themselves into a giant whose default setting is mindless destruction.”

“Dr. Banner is under control. We have eyes on him, he’s caused no issues in the past few years —”

“Who gave the go-ahead for more work on the serum?”

Agent Coulson presses his lips into a thin line, and sighs through his nose. “Sergeant Barnes, you technically don’t have the clearance to know this —”

“Great,” he says, irritated. “Now I have to talk to Fury.”

 _“But,”_ Coulson continues, with as much of a glare as you’ll ever see from Coulson. “There is some residue on the uniform that doesn’t appear to be — of human origin. It could be related to the weapon Hydra was using during the war.”

“The cube?” Bucky frowns at him. _That’s almost as bad as the serum._ “Jesus. Whatever, we can talk about it later. You’ve got a plane you need to pull out of the ice. Where’s Steve’s shield?”

❖

Bucky’s shoved himself into a tucked away corner of the jet, knees pulled up and gaze turned to the window beside him. In the fading light, the Valkyrie looks hazy, black edges blurred — a pile of soil on a new grave. _Here lies Steven Grant Rogers, angry son of a bitch and James Buchanan Barnes’ whole goddamn heart._

The sound of heels on the metal floor, coming closer — “Here.”

Bucky turns around and gets a face full of red, white, and blue — the shield. He takes it with shaking hands, lays it over his knees. It’s all real now. It’s all _fucking real —_ “Thank you,” he says without looking up. “Natalia — thank you.”

A light touch on the crown of his head, fingers combing through his hair — another unusual show of affection, another sign of just how much of a mess he is, Jesus, but Bucky’ll take it.

“I’m sorry, James.”

Instead of replying, Bucky leans forward and drops his head against the shield. He hears Natalia sigh and walk away, hears her talking in a low voice to the pilot.

When the jet finally kicks into gear and lifts off the ice, he doesn’t look out the window.

❖

Steve watches the plane leave, watches it until it fades away completely.

He has to — he has to follow Bucky. _God,_ Steve doesn’t even know if he’s heading back to New York. How would he even figure out how to get there?

If he just keeps swimming south, he’ll get there, right? South, and keep west —

 _Jesus,_ is he really doing this? Of course he is, it’s _Bucky,_ it’s Steve’s _everything,_ right there and alive and looking pretty fucking heartbroken because he thinks Steve’s a pile of lonely bones at the bottom of the Atlantic.

So what if he’s scared, he’s been scared his whole goddamn life, the only difference now is that, well —

He’s spent nearly seven decades alone. He can barely remember the sound of his own voice. By the time he pulled his head out of his ass he’d already lost nearly twenty years to being a seal, too long to think anyone would still be looking for him, anyways.

So: he got used to living this way. People weren’t looking for him, so he didn’t look for people. He couldn’t, not when all even thinking about it made him twist and shrivel up in shame and loneliness and longing so sharp it was like a blade slipped between the ribs.

This life is hard and it’s easy and thinking about leaving makes him _freak the fuck out_ but Bucky’s alive and Steve’s next shift is in a year and a half. He has a year and a half to find Bucky.

And if he does, _when_ Steve does find him — Steve can come home. _Fuck,_ he can finally go home.

His pelt — they’ll figure it out. They always did, before. No reason to think they won’t this time.

No reason to wait any longer, either.

Steve looks to the people still poking at the Valkyrie. He can see another team getting ready to go inside. That — doesn’t matter anymore. Steve knows they’re not going to find anything else of his.

He dives off of the ice floe and slips smoothly into the water.

He swims away from the Valkyrie for the last time.


	2. Occupational Hazard(s)

_**Arctic Circle, 1987.** _

Steve’s shift finally comes with the setting sun.

He’s been waiting for it, waiting for _years,_ and the only warning he had gotten was an itching under his skin — different to the molting he goes through every spring — that started a few hours before nightfall. In one moment he is a seal; in the next, he isn’t.

Steve gasps, chest heaving, and the cold air hits his lungs like a pickaxe on every inhale. He grabs the edge of his pelt, split down the middle so that it can wrap around him like a blanket, and pulls it tightly to his body.

He burrows deeper into the hole he dug himself in the snow. _God fuck it’s cold._ The sky is violet and the air is sharp.

He’s human again, for one night. Now he has some answers, some of his suspicions are confirmed, but it doesn’t actually change anything, not really — he’s still alone, still in the Arctic, still no real sense of _where_ he actually is.

It’s not ideal. _None_ of it is ideal.

He closes his eyes and breathes out through his nose, tries to gather himself. _Alright. What do we know now?_

It’s been seven years since his last shift, and seven years before that since the one before; it’s a regular pattern, if not a very convenient one, and he’s relatively certain that this is his sixth shift.

Six shifts, seven years apart.

_6 x 7 —_

His eyes sting and his throat burns. Forty-two years. Steve pulls his pelt closer. _Six times seven is forty-two —_ and Steve crashed in —

_forty-five —_

It’s 1987. It’s _nineteen-eighty-fucking-seven._

Steve is 68 years old. He’s been on his own in the Arctic for 42 years already, and he’s only got a few hours left as a human before he spends another seven years as a seal. Rinse, repeat.

Did Peggy make it out of the war? Is she happy? Does she have a family? Steve knows she said she wanted to focus on her career, but _later —_ well, it’s _fucking later._ What about the Howlies? What about — Bucky’s baby sisters. Becca, Louise… _Oh, god_ — Ruthie was just eight years old when Steve put the Valkyrie down.

It’s _1987._ Ruthie would be fifty. Would probably prefer to go by Ruth-Ann, or just Ruth. She and Bucky had matching chins.

❖

At the first hint of light the next morning, Steve feels the same itch, and wraps himself back up in his pelt. He doesn’t fight it. He slips back into the water.

❖

**_New York, 2013._ **

The feeling of someone’s eyes on him reels him into the present. Bucky shakes himself, blinking to try and clear his vision. Steve’s shield is still held tightly in his grip. He must have fallen asleep.

“Hey,” Natalia says, staring down at him with her hands on her hips. “We’re landing in 10.”

Bucky hums, reaching up to rub his eyes with the heel of his palm. He slept, but it wasn’t restful. His head feels like it’s full of cotton and his mouth is dry. “Where’re we landing?”

“Stark’s,” she replies, and the only hint that she’s sorry about it is the way she huffs at the end of his name.

Bucky groans. “Natalia,” he starts, but she cuts him off.

“I’ve asked JARVIS to hold the elevators. One for you, and one for Tony. While he’s still inside of it. You’ll have five minutes to get out of the tower, tops.”

Which they both know is long enough for him to slink away.

Finding Steve and losing him in the span of a day is enough to wear Bucky out for — the foreseeable future. He can’t deal with Tony and all of his long-denied hero complexes tonight.

Natalia leaves him to it, so he gets up, groaning quietly at the way his back creaks and twinges at sudden movements. He stayed tucked away in his corner the whole flight back, like an idiot.

❖

By the time Bucky makes it back to his apartment, the rest of the building is awake and getting ready to leave for the day. He manages to make it up the stairs unnoticed, and he breathes a sigh of relief once he’s inside his apartment and closed the door behind him.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. Bucky sighs, pulling it out and checking the notification. Notifications. Five texts from Tony, all in the last ten minutes. Bucky sighs again.

_[Conspiring against me? With my own elevator?]_

_[I’m hurt, robocop]_

_[why didn’t you say you were going on a super secret mission to rescue your boo?]_

_[I would have come along, for comedic relief]_

_[also bring your arm for a checkup, I miss it]_

Bucky types out a _fuck off and goodnight_ with one hand and uses the other to turn all four of his locks without looking. He twists until his back is slumped against the wall, sliding down until he hits the floor, knees up. He lets Steve’s shield drop, and it makes a flat, hollow thump.

When Bucky first defected, _Steve_ was — abstract. There were things that Bucky knew, but knowing and remembering are not the same. The longer he was out, the longer he was free, Steve became clearer and clearer in his mind.

It started as a trickle, just a few drops at a time — _blond hair, bloody fists—_ and then it was a river — _large hands, blue eyes, deep voice, proud, so proud. He loved to draw Bucky’s hands —_ and then it was an ocean, something so large and devastating and crushing that with every recalled memory, he _felt_ them, too — all senses engaged, overwhelming and all-consuming.

And all of that came before he remembered that Steve was dead.

So right now, he doesn’t feel like crying. His grief is tucked away in a pocket behind his heart, always full and close to bursting, and he’s lived with it for years. Decades, even, he just didn’t know what it was back then.

_What now?_

It shouldn’t feel more real — because it’s always _been_ real — but it does. It shouldn’t hurt like a fresh wound, but it does. Bucky sighs and thumps his head against the wall. Who is he kidding? He’s a mess, he’s _never_ going to be over losing Steve, even if technically Steve lost _him_ first, and there’s a little part of him that’s jealous and angry because there’s a thought, just a small one, that sounds like _what if he could have escaped that plane,_ and _he would be alive, today. Probably look not even a little bit older. We could be together._

But maybe there _was_ no other way. Now that he’s seen the plane, seen how stupidly huge it was, seen the landscape of Steve’s grave, he knows. Steve made his choice, and there was probably nothing he could have done about it.

He breathes out slowly, forcing the muscles in his shoulders and neck to relax.

He needs to sleep, that’s what. Maybe for a whole fucking day, if he can manage. Just — have a day to himself so he can let all of it sink in.

“Butter,” he calls, and is ignored. “Butter?”

Bucky heaves himself off of the floor and carries the shield into the kitchen. He doesn’t bother calling Butter again, so he just opens a can of food and scoops it onto a plate — heavy footsteps come running down the hall, and he’s got the plate on the floor just in time for Butter to crash into his leg and start scarfing down the food.

“Missed you too, you freeloader.” He waits for her to finish before picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder, happy as a clam. She wraps her front legs around his neck and butts her head on his chin, purring like an engine. Bucky sighs. “You’re only this happy after I feed you,” he complains, fond.

With his free hand, he picks up the shield and makes his way to his bedroom. Butter throws herself from his hold and lands on the bed, and Bucky walks over to his dresser and lays the shield on top. He disconnects his arm and places it in its case in the space beside the shield.

He unzips his sweater and kicks off his pants and socks. _Time to sleep for a week._

He pulls back the covers and falls into bed; he’s asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

❖

He gets a few weeks to himself, before someone starts banging on his door.

“No,” he yells at the door, pulling his knees up and spooning more cereal into his mouth. Butter, on the other hand, runs over to the door and starts yowling, like a traitor.

“Stop moping,” Natalia says from the other side of the door. “Open the door before I break in.”

“You can’t break in.”

“All the more reason to just _open it,_ then, before I use one of Tony’s toys to just blow a hole in it.”

With a sigh, Bucky gets up off the couch and puts his bowl down on the table as he walks past. Butter is still crying like banshee when he finally starts unlocking his door, and Natalia doesn’t bother waiting for him to open the door for her; she pushes it open and walks right past him, depositing a bag of breakfast takeout on the table next to his half-eaten cereal.

“Good morning,” he says.

She turns to look at him, gaze sweeping up and down with an unreadable expression on his face. Bucky tugs at the hem of his sleeve, suddenly self-conscious. His hair is pulled back in a bun, and he knows that the shadows under his eyes aren’t pretty. “What?”

“Nothing,” she replies, and starts pulling the food out of the bag.

Breakfast is quiet, but not awkward. He’s — tense, because he knows she wants to talk, and because he knows that he needs to get out of the house, but. But.

Once the food is done and they both have coffee, they move over to the living room and sit on opposite ends of the couch; Butter comes over and crawls onto Bucky’s lap.

“So?” He finally asks, taking a sip of his coffee.

“We didn’t really talk much after we left the crash site.” She turns her head to look at him. “You checked out for most of the flight home.”

Bucky hums, agreeing with the assessment; his memories of the flight are fuzzy at best, but not in a dangerous way. Just… “It was shitty.”

“Yeah,” Natalia sighs, sliding down the couch and resting her mug on her belly. “It was.”

“I just…” Bucky starts, and puts his coffee down on the table so he can dig all of his fingers into Butter’s fur. “I wanted him to be in there.”

“Did you?”

Bucky scratches Butter’s itchy spot at the base of her tail. “I wanted to bring him home.”

“But you have his shield,” she says, not unkindly.

“Fuck the shield,” Bucky says, mulish. “All they found was Captain America’s shit. Nothing of _Steve’s.”_

Bucky groans in frustration, dragging his fingers through his hair. “It’s — it’s great that Captain America means so much to people. But he’s more of a symbol than anything, now, and that’s not —” he stops to take a breath, drops back against the couch. He blinks up at the ceiling, and then turns to look at Natalia, who is already looking at him. “I just can’t bury the shield next to his ma, Natalia. That’s not Steve.”

❖

_**New York, December 2013.** _

Steve should have expected this; he doesn’t know why he didn’t.

The city is completely alien.

After weeks of travelling he’s finally found himself back in New York — _back_ home _you fucking bozo —_ and it’s a cacophony of unfamiliar sights and sounds. He had caught sight of cities on his journey south, of course, but _this,_ this is — it’s so fucking _tall_ and the _smell, Christ —_

He tries to find rests, breaks in the pattern of skyscrapers littering the horizon. He is so goddamn glad for the familiarity of the Brooklyn Bridge, Coney Island, the Statue of Liberty — but they all show signs of decay, of age; although the Statue of Liberty was old even when Steve was a kid, there had still been hints of reflective copper. Even colourblind he can tell that it’s all just a flat, oxidized green.

And then burying the old and familiar are giant things, shiny and new, sleek and modern and ugly —

He’s been gone so long.

_And for a good fucking reason —_

Steve dives, twisting furiously in the murky water. He was gone so long because he _had_ to be gone. No one was going to look at a fucking seal and say ‘ _hey look, it’s Captain America! He’s got some nice spots!’ E_ veryone would have moved on by the time Steve managed to piece things together, anyways.

Anyways anyways _anyways —_

Steve lashes out with his hind flippers, hitting rock. It burns, it _hurts,_ and…

He’d made his bed. And he laid in it for decades, was just going to lie in it until maybe one day he died, but now he’s got to get his head out of his ass because _Bucky Barnes thinks he’s dead._

If Steve feels like he’s in a hole it’s because he dug it himself, and now he has to get up and get moving because he’s on a fucking time limit.

He’s got — more than a year, still. It’s been snowing nearly every night now and the city is full of glittering lights; the other night he got close enough to hear — _Judy Garland_ singing _Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas,_ and well — that’s an unexpected touch of familiarity, too.

So it’s December. He’s got a year and some change to find Bucky and somehow convince him that he’s Steve, Bucky’s Stevie, and that he’ll _change —_ two legs, two hands, the ability to use actual human language — they just have to wait, and figure out what to do with Steve’s pelt, but it’ll work out. It always did, before. Before.

Steve comes up for air and watches the city. _Before_ was a long time ago. Would it be better if Steve stayed away? Would Bucky even want to see Steve?

But then Steve remembers Bucky’s reaction at the Valkyrie. And if it were reversed, Steve can’t imagine not wanting to see Bucky, not wanting to hold him, not wanting the chance to love on him with everything he has.

❖

A few days later Steve finds himself alone under the pier at Coney Island. Alone, spiralling, and completely hopeless.

There are — well, New York was a big city before the war, the _biggest_ city, and from what he can tell it’s only gotten bigger. There is nowhere unpopulated, nowhere he can hide for a long period of time. There are people, _so many fucking people —_ and it makes his skin crawl. _God_ it makes all his hair stand on end. Sure, Steve hadn’t ever been as social as Buck, but _this._

People are noisy, they stink, they’re crammed in too close together.

Why does that bother Steve? Last time he spent time with people, it’d been the Howlies. Noisy? Check. Smelly? _Ugh._ Cramped quarters? Definitely.

So why can’t he bring himself to get closer? If he can’t get closer, he won’t be able to see Bucky, he won’t be able to —

A _bang,_ from down the beach. Steve flinches, ramming back against a pillar of the pier.

When he looks, it’s just — it’s just a bunch of kids. Kids doing stupid stuff, doing _normal stupid kid stuff,_ and it made Steve’s heart leap into his fucking throat.

_Why can’t he do this?_ It’s not like — it’s not like he _suffered,_ he was just — by himself, out there. Not seeing any people for seventy years shouldn’t make him _scared_ of them.

If he could laugh, he would. _How goddamn pathetic._

_Get it together, Rogers,_ he berates himself. _You can’t give up. You can’t fucking give up. Not when it’s Bucky at the end of the line._

❖

**_New York, December 2013._ **

_Another year, gone._ Bucky brushes the dusting of snow off the balcony railing and folds his arms over it, watching the glittering lights in the distance. It’s five minutes until midnight.

Behind him, the sliding door opens a crack; Bucky turns his head to watch Natalia try to join him one limb at a time, all the while cursing at Butter who is yowling at her feet, completely bereft at being left out, even if she fucking hates the snow. Hands full, Natalia has to use her hip to push the door closed behind her.

She hands Bucky his drink, and joins him at the railing. They’re quiet, but the rest of the city is not.

“How are you feeling?” She asks.

“Alright,” Bucky answers honestly. “Missing Steve.”

“Sometimes I wish I could have met him,” she says, thoughtful.

“Only sometimes?” Bucky asks, bland.

Natalia smiles at him, expression fond. “He sounds like an asshole.” She leans over to knock her glass with Bucky’s. “To Steve,” she says, just as midnight strikes. “Happy New Year.”

In the distance, crowds in Times Square begin to cheer and sing, and fireworks light up the skyline. “Happy New Year, Natashenka.”

Her smile widens into a grin, a pleased flush on her face. “May this year bring you happiness, James.”

It’s a little _too_ sincere, so Bucky just reaches over and shoves her.

❖

_**New York, May 2014.** _

It’s not like Bucky doesn’t get phone calls. Sure, it’s usually either just Natalia or Tony calling to bug him, but right now he stares at his vibrating phone and all of the hair on his arm stands up.

He swipes his thumb over the screen. “Barnes,” he answers.

_“It’s bad,”_ Natalia tells him. _“I’m picking you up in twenty, and then we’re heading out to the helicarrier.”_

She hangs up. Bucky stares at his phone, dread pooling in his gut.

_“Fuck,”_ he hisses.

He stands and gets his things in order, scoops Butter into her carrier and packs her bag to drop her off at Moira’s apartment a floor below. Butter cries the whole time, distraught.

“So much fucking drama. Is your name Steve? I didn’t name you Steve.”

Moira answers the door when he knocks, hair tied up in a bun and pushing glasses up her nose. “How long you gonna be gone?”

“Don’t know,” he tells her, and steps inside when she moves out of the way. “I’ll leave enough that you can buy more food and supplies if you need it, and grocery money for you, too.”

“Thanks, although you really don’t need to.” She takes the carrier from him and coos at Butter. “You know I don’t mind taking care of her.”

“I know,” he replies. “Means a lot.”

He sneaks a few more twenties under the vase by the entrance, but before he closes the door he turns back for a moment. “I… stay inside? I got a bad feeling.”

Butter is already curled in Moira’s arms and butting her head on her chin, acting like _Bucky’s_ been the one babysitting her this whole goddamn time. Moira stares back at him, surprised and also concerned. “I — uh, sure. I won’t go anywhere, James.”

Bucky just nods at her and heads out, adjusting his bag on his shoulder. He makes it down to the street just as Natalia pulls up.

“What’s going on?” Bucky asks as he settles in.

“Can’t say for sure just yet,” Natalia replies, tense. One beat, two, then — “Clint’s been compromised.”

_“Fuck,”_ Bucky breathes. “How?”

She just shakes her head. “Fury, Coulson, and Hill are waiting for us on the helicarrier. We’ll hear more then.” Natalia turns to him with a wry smile. “Also, welcome to the Avengers.”

“I know that I occasionally lose time, but if Fury took advantage of my brain damage to make me sign on _that_ particular dotted fucking line I will gut him,” Bucky says, flat. “I said I didn’t want any part of that shit show. You know that something like that won’t last long without someone wanting to put a leash on it.”

Natalia turns her gaze back to the road, zigzagging through traffic. Eventually, she sighs, shoulders slumping and hands sliding on the wheel. “It’s all we have right now, James.”

❖ 

“How long have you had it?” Bucky asks, tense. He’s staring at the file in front of him, still trying to wrap his head around it. “And what have you been doing with it?”

The cube. The _fucking cube._ Here for god knows how long, in the hands of SHIELD who was Hydra — and it leaves an awful feeling in his gut, makes his hands start to shake. Coulson had said _the weapon Hydra was using during the war,_ as if he didn’t really know what he was talking about. Jesus Christ.

“SHIELD has had the Tesseract for sixty years. Howard Stark found it while searching for Captain Rogers,” Fury tells him, and Bucky clamps down on his body’s reactionary instinct to flinch at any mention of Steve’s name. “And it’s been kept in a secure location.”

“Until an alien god walked into your base and stole it,” Bucky bites back, crossing his arms over his chest. _Can’t fucking lose it just because someone mentions Stevie, get a fucking grip._ He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Jesus Christ.”

“Even more proof that we _need_ the Tesseract. We need its power in order to protect ourselves.”

“What does _that_ mean? I’m pretty sure I was told it was being used for clean energy. Anyone else? No? No one heard anything different?” Tony asks the room, spinning round with his arms wide. “Oh! Actually, I think I’ll ask JARVIS. He might know something.”

“And what does _that_ mean, Tony?” Fury asks slowly.

“Sir,” a knock on the door is the only warning the little SHIELD intern gives them before sticking their head in the room. “They found a match in Berlin.”

❖

Bucky cannot fucking believe this day. Has it only been a day? Barely twenty-four fucking hours since he and Natalia showed up on the helicarrier?

As he watches, the sky above him seems to — tremble. It cracks, then tears itself open and a wave of Chitauri fall through, screaming war cries.

“Hm,” Natalia steps up next to him, hands on her hips. “I wasn’t trained for this shit.”

Bucky stares at her, incredulous. “How was I supposed to know you would fight aliens one day?”

She sighs and unholsters the guns strapped to both thighs. “Don’t be too sad, James. No one is perfect.”

❖ 

_**New York Harbour, May 2014** _

Steve used to pray, before.

Then Mam died. Then Bucky died. Then Steve was ripped to pieces and changed and lived for decades alone in the cold. He hadn’t needed or wanted to pray, then.

It’s been so long that he may have even forgotten the words.

But then Steve sees the sky over the city turn itself inside-out.

_Áve María, grátia pléna, Dóminus técum,_ he begins, feeling split open and hollow. _Oh, Buck._

❖

_**Coney Island beach, May 2014.** _

Bucky doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep for days. He is so fucking keyed up — _aliens, Steve, would you fucking believe it?_ He kicks at a stone in his path. _Aliens._ Ugly, awful, screaming things, something right from Bucky’s childhood nightmares.

It was warmer in the city. On the beach, the wind off the ocean gives the air a chill; Bucky shoves his hands deeper into his pockets. He doesn’t know why he came to Coney Island. He doesn’t know why he isn’t at home in his apartment with Butter and his couch and his fucking wool socks — he just started walking and hadn’t stopped until he reached the shore.

Even after suffering an alien invasion, Bucky is surprised that there is no one on the beach — New Yorkers are insane — but he welcomes the solitude.

He walks closer to the shoreline and drops onto the sand with a sigh. He brings his knees to his chest and leans his head forward, eyes closed. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuck.”_

Things are going to be different, now. It wasn’t a _secret,_ that Bucky is alive and — coping, and just doing his thing. But it was on the down low. He was living anonymously. People didn’t know he was the Winter Fucking Soldier.

But he had to help. He couldn’t _not_ help, not when it was fucking aliens, and — it’s probably not going to be as bad as he thinks. He was wearing a mask, and his arm is black, blends in with his uniform, not like the reflective beacon Hydra drilled to his spine. People will gossip, people will speculate, but — maybe he’ll still be able to live as he had been. With Butter and his couch and his fucking wool socks and everything.

_And what luck to have this moment of peace and quiet,_ he thinks to himself, wry.

Except —

❖

Steve has had — a bad day. An awful fucking day, because he just fucking knows that Bucky was in the thick of all the fighting, and Steve hadn’t been there, _couldn’t_ be there, to watch his back. He’s just been shuffling through feeling completely useless, scared shitless, on the edge of panic, and a burning rage. He’d wear himself out, but then the cycle would start all over again as soon as Steve caught a whiff of the air — smoke, fear, death, blood.

He couldn’t get through to Midtown. Too big of a police presence, too many people who could see him, report him. Maybe they wouldn’t care, after the day they had, but Steve still couldn’t risk being caught by the fucking _marine biologists_ and put in a fucking zoo.

The only thing he could do was crawl back to his corner of the beach, under the pier.

But someone is already there.

❖

Bucky feels eyes on him. Not malicious, he can tell, but —

It’s a seal.

Bucky blinks at it, dumbfounded. The thing is only ten feet away, still half submerged in the water, and it’s — stupidly large. The deja-vu nearly makes him dizzy.

“Coulson has to be wrong about leopard seals only living in the Antarctic,” Bucky says, breathless. He has no idea what to do — he doesn’t think the thing could move with any kind of significant speed on land, but _how can he actually fucking be sure?_ And the way it’s _looking at him,_ like — “What the fuck.”

It barks at him. It slaps its tail in the shallow water.

“Hi,” Bucky says. “I’ve had a really bad fucking day, and I’d appreciate it if you just let me have my peace and quiet for a bit.”

It stares at him some more, tilting its head like it’s actually considering Bucky’s request, but then instead of _leaving,_ like Bucky would _really like for it to do,_ it hops up the shore and drops onto the sand. It rolls onto its side, silver belly exposed, and then it — deflates. Flattens like a popped tire. Makes a weird purring-slash-snorting noise. Wiggles a bit to shift the sand underneath it, and then sighs. It’s settled in.

Bucky really wishes Natalia hadn’t confiscated his smokes. He sighs. “As long as you keep you and your teeth over there, I guess it’ll be fine.”

They sit together until there’s a faint hint of orange on the horizon. It’s — quiet. It’s nice.


	3. We're Both Crazy, Huh Pal

_**Manhattan, September 2010.** _

James inspects his left arm.

It’s similar to the one Hydra forced upon him, all that time ago. The metal is a shade darker, a hint bluer — there is no red star on the shoulder, but there is a small SHIELD insignia on the plate inside of his elbow, painted in silver. James is the only one that can see it, really.

Lately he’s been finding that fact real fucking annoying.

He doesn’t know _when,_ exactly, he started feeling like that small little insignia was taunting him. But one day he looked at it and thought _when did I ever actually agree to be here?_ And he hasn’t stopped thinking about it since.

James picks at his arm. He keeps the nails on his right hand short, so it doesn’t really make any difference. He pulls a knife from his sleeve, determined.

He’s barely even tapped the surface of his arm with the knife when —

“Are we boring you, sergeant?”

_Ah,_ he thinks. _Right._ He’s in a briefing. Natalia is in the chair next to him, looking bored except for the tightness at the corners of her mouth that means she is clamping down on a smile.

James looks up at Agent Coulson. He slides the knife back in its sheath up his sleeve without saying a word.

Coulson stares at him for a long time. Long enough that he gets a pink hair elastic to the forehead, courtesy of Natalia. Coulson closes his eyes, and his knuckles go white where they’re gripping the back of a chair. He sighs. “Why don’t we just wrap this up. Dismissed. Report back tomorrow at 0700.”

❖

It’s barely past three in the afternoon when James steps outside. Plenty of time left in the day, plenty of time to make some impulse decisions.

At least, he tells himself it’s an impulsive decision. He can think all day and all night about his arm and how he would change it and how he wants it to look. Actually _doing_ something about it? That’s new. James smiles as he pulls out his phone and dials Tony Stark’s personal number. He picks up on the third ring.

_“So, you have uhhhhhh a minute? Yeah, one minute to sell me your fanciest vacuum. I’m assuming you’re some kind of salesman, because only telemarketers can just randomly end up calling one of the most secret private numbers of the richest, handsomest, most genius superhero in —”_

“Not interested in selling you a vacuum, Stark,” James interrupts. “How about the opportunity to build a metal arm?”

Silence. _“Well,”_ Stark replies. _“I guess that does sound more exciting than a vacuum.”_

❖

Except James doesn’t actually want Stark to just build an arm. “I want to help. I want you to teach me.”

Stark’s brows jump to his hairline. “Uhh — look, robocop, you sure you’re up for it? I mean, I know _I_ can figure it out, but —”

“It’s bolted to my spine,” James says. “It’s connected to my brain. I want to know it inside and out.”

Stark just gives him a hard look. He drops his head with a sigh, and drums his fingers against the arc reactor in his chest. “Yeah, alright, I know how that feels,” Stark kicks a rolling stool to James, and pulls one closer for himself. “What do we have to work with?”

James pulls out a stack of files from his bag. At Stark’s look, he says “I’m… borrowing them.”

Stark looks gleeful. “‘Borrowing’ from SHIELD? I can get behind that.”

❖

_**Brooklyn, December 2010.** _

He is a week out of surgery, and he feels — good. _Jesus Christ,_ he feels good. More like himself than he’s felt in decades. When he left the tower the day before, he had even asked Tony and Pepper to call him Bucky. It was the first time he’s said his own nickname in — too long. So fucking long, and the way it felt to say it, the way it tasted in his mouth —

Well, at least he made it home before he started bawling his eyes out.

SHIELD doesn’t know what he’s done. Bucky knows they’ll care, probably, and pretend very hard _not_ to. Maybe they’ll try and say that he’s not allowed to do something like this, that it’s a condition for him to live peacefully and quietly that he only wears prosthetics that they provide for him.

They won’t say _it’s because_ _we had trackers in the elbow and your pinky finger._ They won’t say _we had put a sedative in your bicep that would have released into your bloodstream on our command._

There are none of those things in this arm. It’s black, so deep it’s almost blue. The plates on the inside of his arm fade into silver, mimicking the soft colouring of a wolf’s underbelly. The veins in the arm match the blue of the arc reactor, and it is almost as sensitive as his flesh and blood hand.

He thinks of Steve. He wants Steve to see how far he’s come, wants to hear him say _I’m proud of you, Bucky. I love you so much._

He can’t have that.

But he can have this: the arm was a chain that tethered him to Hydra, that kept him on SHIELD’s leash. This is new, this is good, this is — a step in the right direction. He belongs to no one but himself.

❖

_**Coney Island, May 2014.** _

Steve is elated. He is thrilled. He is _so fucking pissed off._

Six months. Six months of searching and stressing and there are aliens and holes in the sky and James Buchanan Barnes just walks right onto Steve’s square of beach.

He hadn’t said much, after he asked Steve to mind his business. He sat and watched the water, and Steve watched _him,_ trying his best not to squirm too much. After an indeterminable amount of time, Bucky got up and left. Walked up the beach, towards the park — but not without throwing a couple of curious glances at Steve over his shoulder.

That curiosity, the considering glint in his eyes — Steve recognizes that look. Steve’d always been the one that found trouble easiest, the one that always just seemed to walk into fight after fight, his fury set aflame at the first strike of a match. With Bucky, though, the buildup was slower. Everything was slow and calculated, he needed the full picture before he’d jump in, fists raised. But once he was in, there was very little that could take him back out. The pair of them were the most stubborn bastards in Brooklyn, and when Bucky’s got questions, he’ll do his damnedest to find some answers. Even if the question is a large, wild, fanged roll of blubber.

For now, Steve doesn’t need to worry about not knowing where to find Bucky.

Bucky knows where to find _him,_ and he’ll be back.

❖

_**June, 2014.** _

Bucky talks, sometimes.

Obviously, Steve can’t talk back, but that’s — okay. For now. He thinks that maybe Bucky doesn’t have a lot of opportunities to find some quiet, a chance to settle his thoughts and unwind, to talk through his problems without anyone interrupting him. He always used to need time away, way back when. Steve used to get mad about it, but eventually it had gotten through his thick skull that it wasn’t actually always about him — and Bucky always came back, anyways. He always told Steve what was on his mind, once he’d had time to process.

It seems to Steve that there is a lot to process. He knows that something awful happened. Whatever brought Bucky to the twenty-first century wasn’t as — quiet — as waiting seven decades alone in the arctic. He doesn’t talk about it.

His arm is part of it, that much he puts together. Steve still hasn’t seen anything more than Bucky’s hand, but he knows that it’s a prosthetic. Maybe even all the way up to his shoulder, just based on the way he moves, the way he carries himself to counter the weight of it. His fingers are dark and metallic and Steve can hear a low humming, something beyond human hearing, but it doesn’t look like it hurts him. Steve hopes that it’s because he gets it taken care of, that there are people that can help him.

But otherwise, Bucky seems fine. He tells Steve — who he calls _Dot,_ he calls Steve _Dot,_ like an _asshole —_ about his cat, Butter. About Natalia, who he seems to have known for a long time. He talks about Tony Stark, _Howard’s son, Jesus Harold Christopher Christ,_ and about aliens and gods and hulks.

“And now I’m talking to a carnivorous seal like we’re old pals,” Bucky finishes one night, after a long rant about how life is never going to be normal ever again because he’s being called out every other day to power-wash alien guts off the sidewalk. “What the fuck is this timeline?”

Bucky pulls a chocolate bar out of his pocket and breaks off a piece to throw into his mouth. He’s always got something sweet in his pocket, and it makes Steve feel warm and sappy to see it. He gives a little trill and stretches out, kicking the sand up with his tail. _You have no idea, Buck._

❖

_**July, 2014.** _

Bucky’s been drifting for a little while. It’s been nice; the wind is blowing into the ocean, which means he’s not getting hit in the face with fish-smell every second, and the night is warm. His arms are stretched up and tucked behind his head, and he’s humming a song he remembers was one of Steve’s favourites.

_Fuck,_ he can’t remember its _name,_ though. Every time he reaches the end of what he remembers, he just starts over. Starts over, because only ten feet away, Dot’s been tapping something Bucky’s paranoid brain is trying to convince him is _Morse code._

_Long short short short, short short long, long short long short, long short long, long short long long —_

Animals are known to have a limited number of vocalizations. They communicate through patterns, know how to make the same five sounds mean a thousand different things.

-… ..- -.-. -.- -.—

_Bucky._

He huffs and rolls over, putting his back to Dot. He can’t just — believe that a seal is communicating with him. For one, Natalia would be _pissed._ Can’t really say for sure _why_ her reaction would be anger and not incredulity, laughter, or pity, but he _knows._

Dot trills a little, almost mournful, and how does a big, blubbery, fanged thing like Dot make sounds like that? Bucky is — getting too attached. He’s personifying a seal.

“Hush,” Bucky says over his shoulder. “I’m going to sleep for a while.”

He doesn’t. He feels Dot’s eyes on him, burning holes into his back.

Whatever.

❖

So, the Morse code didn’t work. That’s — fine, it’s fine, Steve’ll figure something else out. So Bucky couldn’t believe that a seal would know Morse code. That’s completely reasonable, except for the fact that Steve _isn’t_ a seal.

He squirms, huffing. _Only human one night every seven years._

_Get a grip,_ he tells himself. There is less than a year until his next shift. Compared to the last seventy, that’s — nothing. A blink of an eye.

Doesn’t mean he won’t try to tell Bucky again, though.

❖

_**September, 2014** _

“You know, people don’t know I exist, either,” Bucky says. He doesn’t know where this is coming from. “They can’t, know, really. I think my bosses both hate it and love it.”

He digs his toes into the sand. He’d tossed his socks and sneakers over somewhere to his right. “I was… a prisoner of war. I can accept that, now, but it took me a long time. I was a victim. But I was still a victim that was made to do terrible things, so.”

Dot is still where he’s flattened out on the sand. But there’s a tension in him, a focus very much belonging to the predator he is.

“I was a ghost. Killed people from miles away. I was like — the boogeyman, the monster under the bed. Spies and assassins and agents across the globe could never agree whether or not I actually existed.

“I mean… it’s different. And it’s not. If you were just a regular fucking seal and not the apex predator of the Antarctic, it’d be fine, but somehow you ended up out here, and there hasn’t been any news stories about it, no one crying about local seal populations being attacked by the resident spotted bully. If people found out you were here, they’d probably want to get rid of you. Best case, keep you in a zoo, or a research facility, which you would probably hate. Worst case, they kill you.

Bucky wants a cigarette. He pulls out a chocolate from his pocket instead. “Those are my options, too. If people find out about who I was.”

He’s been thinking about it for years. Since around the time he had his new arm built, probably. He doesn’t know if he’s doing the right thing, staying hidden. It’s the selfish thing, for sure. He has a home, a cat, and friends. He crawled out of Hell and he’s built himself a life from the ashes.

But he was only able to do that because SHIELD was able to hide the Hydra purge. Bucky hadn’t had his head screwed on, at all, really — he didn’t care if SHIELD kept on being SHIELD, as long as he could join in on the missions.

But now — “I had this pal,” Bucky says, eyes focused on a light, way in the distance, bobbing in the water. “And I can’t regret what happened then, because I was barely able to feel anything at all, then, but the more I think about it, the more I think he would have wanted to tear it all down, no matter what could have been ‘salvaged.’

“He was a real stand-up guy” _—_ and this is definitely the most he’s ever said aloud in this century about Steve, and it’s to a fucking _seal —_ “I loved him more than anything. I still do, really. He was pig-headed and could be a bit of a bully when he thought he was right, but I bullied him right back. Really it was for nothing, all I ever needed to do to shut him up was kiss on him, but. He knew what I was doing, ‘course. He was the easiest thing to get riled up and —”

Bucky cuts himself off. “Well. Off-topic. But he would’ve gotten riled up. He would have been spitting mad. He would have burned the fuckers to the ground, consequences be damned.” Bucky quirks a smile. “What an asshole. People spent their whole lives trying to build SHIELD up, but Steve would have seen the cracks and blown it to pieces in minutes.”

Dot gives a huffy bark, and rolls onto his back.

“I — want to do the right thing. I think I’ll quit SHIELD. I’ll help, if they really need it, but I don’t think SHIELD is the right place for me. It hasn’t changed enough. Hydra snuck in, not even really bothering to hide in the shadows since they worked their way to the top. I was enough to help bring them down from the inside, but I don’t think anyone is enough to turn it into something good.” Bucky drops his head onto his knees, feeling miserable and exhausted. “D’you think they’ll let me retire? I want to be done.”

He can’t get over the fact he’s spilling his secrets like this to a _seal._ That, at least, makes him smile a little. He turns his head to look at Dot. “Jeez,” he gasps, breath catching on a horrified laugh. “Pal, you look like you want to rip someone’s face off.”

Bucky gives in and pulls his smokes out of his pocket. “I get it. I wanted to rip their faces off for a long time, too.” He laughs again. “What a pair we make, huh?”

❖

_**December, 2014.** _

Another stick breaks between his teeth, and out of sheer frustration, Steve chomps the rest of it to bits and probably ends up swallowing some of it — _for fuck’s sake —_ but that’s attempt number eleven and Bucky’s going to be here any minute and Steve probably should have figured this out earlier.

He spits out the wood chips and drags his flippers across the mess of lines and illegible gouges he left in the sand; so long not thinking about language, about reading and writing and fitting lines and dots together to make _sense —_ of course this wasn’t going to work. Steve’s seal body is too big and graceless on land to try and create something as delicate as writing.

That morning, he’d had grand plans that involved writing Bucky a letter, but right now he would settle for a simple _I STEVE._

He doesn’t know what else he can do, really.

“What, are you itchy or something?”

Steve looks up to see Bucky walking towards him, a thick scarf around his neck and a thermos held in one hand. He drops onto the ground and curls up as much as he can, grumbling about the cold. “I sure could use a fur coat like yours right about now,” he says, grimacing. “Or maybe two fucking braincells, because then maybe I would’ve realized that coming out to the beach, at night, in December, might’ve been a bad fuckin’ idea.”

Steve watches Bucky, not really listening as he starts to talk about his day — something about Tony, something about Butter — and maybe this will work out. Maybe Steve doesn’t have to figure out a way to talk to Bucky right now, because Bucky comes back almost every other night, and Steve doesn’t have much longer to wait, anyways. A few months? What’s that, compared to decades?

Steve shifts, making himself comfortable in the sand. Bucky spares him a glance, but doesn’t stop talking, keeping up a low, consistent stream of conversation and _God_ Steve will make it. He’ll make it to the other side of this, and maybe one day they’ll laugh at how Steve thought he could hold a twig in his ugly fuckin’ jaws and write out his sad-ass story to Bucky in the sand.

Compared to decades, a few months is nothing. If Steve sticks to his routine, sticks to his beach and his water and his pier, then it’ll work out. What could go wrong?

❖

_**Atlantic Ocean off of the coast of New York, January 2015.** _

Steve should have been paying more attention.

He’s spent most of the day swimming out in the open water. It’s been nice, quiet; he hasn’t run into any other seals or whales, and it’s easy to catch fish out here. He is usually so good at avoiding the boats, avoiding being seen by people; he’s gotten complacent, relaxed — only a couple weeks left before his shift, he knows it, he’s so close that he can almost _taste_ it.

Doesn’t mean shit can’t hit the fan. He knows that, too.

It’s the glint of a large, silver body in the corner of his eye — school of fish, something fun, a _chase —_ and he has no idea how he didn’t see it, how he could have missed it, but — by the time he shoots forward in the water it’s too late to stop. He swims right into the net, startling himself and all of the fish around him.

It’s chaos, Steve flailing and kicking and the fish around him are being crushed to his sides, wriggling against the pull of the rope. He folds forward as the net underneath him is gathered up, and _fuck_ his heart is pounding and he can’t _break the net._ Why can’t he break the net? He writhes, panicked and not ready to admit that he’s scared shitless. _Where is the super soldier strength when you need it?_ His nostrils flare without him thinking about it, and water rushes in, he chokes, he writhes more — _God, he’s so stupid —_

His flipper catches on the rope and pulls, and there’s blood in the water. It burns, and he tries again to swim out from the net, tries to chew through the rope with his teeth, but it’s too late. His right flipper is stuck, caught in the overlapping loops of netting.

The net is pulled above water, and he breaks the surface, and Steve gasps and chokes and whines. Fish slip out from the gaps in the net, his bulk forcing them between the warp and weft. There is a lot of yelling.

Grey sky and bitter winds and the smell of salt and then Steve is being dropped onto the deck of the boat, howling in pain and choking it off with a whine. Fish flop around him, and Steve rolls onto his belly, watching with narrowed eyes as the men approach him. They look curious and awed and scared, one of ‘em’s got a — stick, something sharp, something pointed down at him to give him a poke, sharp enough to do even more damage before he’ll be able to get out of this mess —

_“Jesus Christ —_ what _is_ this thing?”

“What kind of seal is this fucking huge?”

He can’t let that happen. He’s screwed up now, if these men don’t already know what he is, then they’ll probably know soon, and they’ll know that he doesn’t belong in their waters. Steve needs to leave, _now._

He writhes, kicking out with his tail, hundreds of pounds of muscle swinging out at them — they all jump back, crying out and cursing, and in the back of his mind, Steve hopes that none of them have a gun handy. He lunges forward, dragging most of the net with him, ignoring the burning pain in his flipper. He snaps at the men who try to block his path, and they are quick to step out of the way. He has no interest in harming them, but he’s not going to spend another minute on this boat. As he crawls across the deck, he feels something sharp catch his side, feels his skin tear, whines in pain and grits his teeth and makes it to the walls of the boat, heaves himself up onto the railing. It doesn’t take much after that to tip forward, fall into the water.

His body hits the water like it’s fucking concrete —

And then, quiet.

It’s shock, probably. All he’s aware of is the pounding of his heart, the rushing of the water around him, the sharp sting of the wounds on his flipper, his side. The weight of the net he still carries with him is nothing, not when he just has to _get away._

He doesn’t remember coming up for air, although he must have — when his vision clears and he catches his breath, he’s underneath the pier, his pier, and it’s nightfall. The beach is empty.

He assesses the damage. The gash is lower than he thought, deep in the meat of his tail. Without the rush of adrenaline, every twitch makes him hiss. It’s deep enough that he’s actually kind of worried about it — he hasn’t actually ever hurt himself this badly since he first shifted, from what he remembers.

His right flipper is a mess, still stuck in the netting. It’s cut to shit and feels like one giant bruise.

He eyes the rope still wrapped around his body. _I could maybe chew through this?_

Steve can’t believe he freaked out like that. It was animalistic. It was — shame curls hotly in his gut. He’s _not_ an animal, no matter what he’s had to do to survive the past seventy years. He’s _human,_ he’s _Captain America,_ he fought in a war and ran specialized missions and he just nearly got himself cut to pieces by a _fishing net._

He grits his teeth and drags himself further up onto shore.

“Dot?”

_Fuck._ How did he not hear Bucky coming? Steve whips his head around and bares his teeth, unthinking. Bucky takes a step back, hands up in front of him. He looks worried. Steve can see his nostrils flaring a little, sees the way he pales — he can probably smell the blood. _Jesus,_ Steve is a mess, of course Bucky can smell the blood.

“What the hell kind of trouble did you get yourself into?” Bucky doesn’t try to approach, although it looks like he wants to. It’s smart, to stay away. _Don’t approach a wounded wild animal,_ Steve thinks bitterly. _Don’t know what they’ll do to keep themselves safe._

He knows he wouldn’t hurt Bucky, he _knows_ that, but everything feels a little too loud, a little too close — he’s spiralling, still on the edge of panic. Without the adrenaline he can really fucking feel how deep his wounds are, and he can’t believe how _stupid_ he was —

Bucky’s crouched low on the ground, now, eyeing the net wrapped around Steve. He can’t see the wound on Steve’s other side, but he seems to be able to tell something else is wrong. “Jesus,” he dips his head and sighs. “Natalia is going to kill me.”

He pulls out a knife, and Steve just… freezes. All other sound fades out until all that’s left is his own pounding heartbeat.

“Lemme just cut you loose, Dot,” Bucky is saying, from miles away.

Steve fades back into the present. Goddammit will today ever give him a break? Steve won’t hurt Bucky, and of course Bucky wouldn’t hurt Steve. He’d never hurt an — an animal. Not if he didn’t have to.

Steve lies down and turns his head away from Bucky, forces his body to relax into the sand. He can’t bring himself to look at Bucky, too ashamed of his moment of fear. It takes a minute before Bucky decides it’s safe to come forward, and as he picks up the first bit of rope, he murmurs words of comfort under his breath, runs his hand over Steve’s shivering flank.

This is the first time Bucky’s touched him in seventy years. Even if Bucky doesn’t actually realize he’s Steve.

❖

It’s only because Bucky’s hand is made of metal that it doesn’t shake when he cuts the rope. It’s thin netting, but strong, and it’s so tangled that he has to wonder how Dot even managed to get back here without getting caught on anything else. Fishing is done out in the open water, miles from the shore.

Dot’s flipper is — shredded. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to cut the net off himself.

He clears Dot’s right side of the net, minus his flipper, and moves down to clear his tail. It’s strange, how still he is. For a wounded animal. Even if what they have is — weird, _this_ shouldn’t be happening, Dot should have zero interest in letting Bucky near him when he’s been hurt like this, but he’s calm. Not relaxed, definitely in pain, but he’s holding himself still and he seems to understand what Bucky is trying to do for him.

No matter what Natalia has said about his… friendship with this seal, Bucky’s never actually forgotten to keep his distance. Keeps far enough away that he’d be able to jump out of reach faster than Dot would be able to lunge, if it ever came to that.

This stillness, this calmness, it isn’t typical animal behaviour.

But Dot _is_ an animal. One that shouldn’t be in New York, sure, but _still an animal._

Bucky cuts the last bit of net off of Dot’s tail and carefully slides it off of his body. There seem to be no injuries like the one on his right flipper, so he moves to Dot’s left side to check the damage. When he sees the second wound, he can’t help but hiss in sympathy.

“That’s shit,” he says, gently trying to lift the strings of net away from the gash. It’s ugly and deep; the skin around the wound is swollen and red. There’s grit and slivers of wood stuck inside, too, he notices with a grimace. “Jesus, did the boat run you over? What the fuck,” he says, dismayed.

He can’t help Dot. Cutting away the net is one thing, and Dot seems to be tolerating it fine, but actually washing out a wound, causing inevitable and necessary harm? Yeah, Bucky’s gonna get his one good arm chewed off.

“Who can help you?” He wonders aloud, and Dot flinches. “I can’t — animal control? Isn’t there an aquarium near here? Jesus, but how have they not noticed you?” Bucky digs out his phone, tries googling the closest exotic veterinarian office. Or should he just call the aquarium? _Fuck it all._

In the moments between pulling out his phone and finding the number for the aquarium, something in Dot seems to have changed. He’s twisting now, turning away from Bucky and trying to push himself back to the water. “Hey! Where are you going?” Bucky tries to herd Dot back up the shore, but he’s getting more and more upset — “Just — just _wait,_ please. Come on, pal, I know you’re confused and hurt but I can’t help you. Just stick around until I can find some people that _can.”_

❖

Steve can’t stick around until they get here.

They’ll take him away, they’ll keep him in a medical facility, and while they’ll do their best to help him with his injuries — Steve doesn’t think Bucky would call people that _wouldn’t —_ it’s much too close to his shift. It’s weeks away. Soon enough that he’ll still be in whatever temperature controlled pool of water they’ll have set up for him, monitored every minute of every hour, when he crawls out of his seal skin and climbs out of the water looking like Captain America gone feral. Too big a chance of them notifying the wrong people first, of not getting to Bucky in time, of someone taking his pelt and hiding it away with no chance of real escape.

Bucky has good intentions. Of that Steve has no doubt. But the stakes are too high, this close to the end. It’s going to suck, recuperating in some hidden corner of the east coast for a couple weeks — and Steve has to _swim there first,_ fuck everything —

Bucky’s hand swings in front of his face and Steve snaps at it; thank god it’s his metal hand, Jesus Christ, and Bucky steps back, swearing. Steve hobbles to the water, not looking back, _can’t_ look back, because Buck’s still yelling after him to get his furry ass back up the shore.

“Dot, come on pal — _Christ_ why won’t these people pick up the damn phone? Stop movin’ like that, you’re just gonna make it worse you fuckin’ lard-ass —”

Steve’s made it to the water and _fuck_ it stings, but this is for the best. Retreat, recover, regroup — come back and shed his seal skin and run straight into Bucky’s arms. He does look back now, at Bucky, who’s talking to someone on the phone; marine biologists and doctors who are gonna be concerned and on the lookout now for a giant seal. Steve can’t help the whine that crawls out of his throat, and Buck looks over at him with his brows drawn down in a frown.

There’s no time to stick around and mope and feel guilty. Steve’s going to need extra time to find shelter with his injuries, and he doubts he’ll be able to outswim a boat for long.

For the first time since Bucky stepped onto Steve’s corner of the beach, Steve is the one to leave first.

**Author's Note:**

> Here, have a little [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0OY4WSH3LAvR9oiKAQaeoL?si=-8Mtm51nSQK6ZMWtlukEag) :)
> 
> Comments & Kudos are always appreciated!


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